Wethersfield Historical Society Seeking Artifacts For Research Into Connecticut State Prison

April 29, 2013|By CHRISTOPHER HOFFMAN, Special to The Courant, The Hartford Courant

WETHERSFIELD — — For almost 140 years, going to prison meant going to Wethersfield.

The town was the site of Connecticut State Prison, long the state's only correctional institution, where everyone from killers to con men did their time.

Now, 50 years after the prison closed, the Wethersfield Historical Society is asking residents for their memories, photographs and artifacts of the institution once central to the community's life and identity.

The society is launching an 18-month research project on the prison underwritten by the Greater Hartford Arts Council and the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving. The project will hold an exhibit in July "to get people talking," culminating with a final exhibition in fall 2014, historical society Director Amy Northrop Wittorff said.

"We really want to involve the community because there are people out there that have things in their basements, things in their attics they can show," Wittorff said. "This is not an exhibit on the prison. We're doing an exhibit on the prison and the town."

To jog memories and encourage attic rummaging, the society is inviting anyone with stories, pictures or artifacts of the bygone prison to share them at a roundtable discussion from 5:30 to 7 p.m. on Tuesday, May 21. The event will be at the Keeney Memorial Center at 200 Main St.

"People have the most amazing stories about the prison," said Rachel Zilinski, administrator and collections manager. "We don't want to lose that."

The prison long defined Wethersfield's identity and economy, with a significant percentage of the town's population employed there, Zilinski said. At one time in the late 19th century, it even offered tours and was a tourist attraction, she said.

"They were very proud of it," Wittorff said. "It was a point of pride."

Inmates and the community had more contact than might be expected, Zilinski said. The high school baseball team, for example, regularly played the inmate team called the Gold Sox. The players would throw cigarettes over the walls, and prisoners would toss back baseballs, she said.

So-called trustees — nonviolent inmates convicted of lesser crimes — were allowed outside the prison walls to fetch coal or tend the gardens that surrounded the prison and often interacted with townspeople, she said.

"From what we hear, it was just part of life," Zilinski said.

The state opened Wethersfield prison in 1827 to replace Old Newgate Prison in East Granby, the state's first, Zilinski said. The new prison was one of the first that sought to rehabilitate instead of punish, she said.

But 1820s rehabilitation sounds harsh to today's ears. Inmates were prohibited from speaking, except for one conversation every two weeks, Zilinski said. The idea was to compel prisoners to reflect on their crimes and mend their ways, she said.

Over the years, the prison expanded, adding a women's wing and an asylum for the criminally insane. It also added vegetable gardens, a piggery and industries ranging from license plate-making to boot-making to woodworking, Zilinski said. The idea was to make the institution self-sufficient, she said.

The historical society already has numerous items from the prison, including photographs and handicrafts made by prisoners.

Perhaps the most interesting is a lamp made from a pipe that hit a Wethersfield firefighter in the head during the 1960 riot at the prison. The society also has the dented fire helmet